


Mythos Is Strange

by EHC



Series: AU ideas [12]
Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Eldritch, Gen, Kind Of A Weird One, Lovecraftian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24563233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EHC/pseuds/EHC
Summary: Blackwell University isn't as prestigious or as established as Miskatonic, but not for a lack of trying. Like that more famous school, it has its fair share of academic excellence, incredibly talented students, dedicated faculty and staff, ties to several cults, dark and terrible things barely hidden from view, and access to the best mental health care that money can buy.Care to submit an application?
Relationships: None
Series: AU ideas [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596307
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Mythos Is Strange

**Author's Note:**

> Partly inspired by [Fractures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547072/chapters/59274997) by [PeculiarlyEmpty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeculiarlyEmpty/pseuds/PeculiarlyEmpty), though not necessarily the story but rather the tags the author used. As soon as I saw "Lovecraftian," it immediately made me curious why there weren't more stories with this tag (I did a search, and really, there aren't many). And then, this idea popped out.

Daniel Bayley - first major landowner in the Tillamook area. After having made his fortune via coal, lumber, and the railroad, he settled in the area after the Civil War, buying up huge tracts of land.

Arcadia Bay - the fishing settlement that grew into a small city, helped by Daniel pumping money into the local industry. His goal was to establish better trade with other towns to the north and south.

Henry Prescott III - professor, scholar, and Miskatonic alumni, Henry moved to the area, nominally to find a quiet place to work on studies, but in reality, to get help establishing a new locale to continue his dark experiments.

Blackwell Academy - established in 1896, funded by Daniel and headed by Henry, who was the school's first principal.

Blackwell University - as Arcadia Bay grew, so too did the school, until it was rechristened a university in 1925. Henry was the university's first dean and immediately began establishing connections to Miskatonic.

Great Depression and World War II - both of these major world events caused massive upheaval in the area, with local business drying up and closing, citizens being drafted to fight, and supplies being diverted to other areas of the country. Blackwell University, in the middle of several expansion projects, also suffers as enrollment plummets. Communication between it and other older, established schools, falls to a mere trickle.

Post-WWII - Arcadia Bay, which had become a veritable ghost town, is saved from a dwindling death through the efforts of William Prescott Jr., who pours resources into both, the university and several key businesses in the area. Slowly, the city crawls itself from the abyss.

Numerous conflicts on the Asian continent become a hotbed of cult activity as all sides used whatever resources at their disposal to gain an edge against their enemies. Robert Prescott, who fancies himself a modern day Allan Quatermain, uses his wealth and influence to travel to these contentious areas, seeking out the strange, the unusual, and the eldritch. Unfortunately for everyone, he succeeds, and brings these items back to Arcadia Bay and Blackwell.

Present Day - Arcadia Bay has become a strange mish-mash of abandoned properties and new construction, sometimes side by side. There's not so much a class divide as there is a generational one, with the older, more established families at odds with the fresher faces that have moved in. The older ones resent the disruption on their traditions while the newer folks turn their noses up at the backwards nature of the old timers.

Blackwell University suffers less from this, though it's apparent that the campus hasn't recovered nearly as much as the pamphlets lead others to believe. Some expansion projects are still incomplete while at least one older building lies in ruins. It's reputation as a center of academic excellence and the arts still carries weight, though, and thanks to the efforts of the latest Prescott, Sean, and the newest Dean, Raymond Wells, that reputation has been fiercely protected and maintained, attracting scholars, professors, and, most importantly, students, the world over.

The cast:

Victoria Chase - _the_ definition of young money. She is pampered, spoiled, and used to getting her way. Talented with a camera but only above average academically, she normally wouldn't have been accepted as a student at all, if it wasn't for two things. The first, Sean sees the Chase family as a source of income. And two, the Chase Space, the family's art studio/museum, holds several one-of-a-kind artifacts of interest, which he'd love dearly to study up close.

  * powers - outside of being a colossal bitch, none
  * cult influence - minimal. Is a high ranking of the Vortex Club, but uses it as a place to get booze and weed, not knowing the more sinister happenings that lurk beneath the surface



Nathan Prescott - scion of the Prescott family, heir-apparent to the family fortune, Nathan is similar to Victoria in that he expects things to be handed to him based on his name alone. Is content to coast along with minimal effort given, though will knuckle down when his father begins brow-beating him. Chafes under any sort of authority.

  * powers - none himself, but he does know the locations of some artifacts of interest
  * cult influence - moderate. Is also a high ranking member of the Vortex Club and knows a bit more about what happens behind the scenes, though is purposely kept from a majority of it



Courtney Wagner - along with Taylor, is one of Victoria's lackeys. However, she is not what she appears to be. Far from human, she's been around longer than anyone else, having been spawned into existence around 1931. She's bound to the campus itself and cannot leave its grounds, so spends her existence attaching herself to different individuals during their time at Blackwell. Her powers obfuscate the truth, making it appear that she simply belongs.

  * powers - moderate. She has damn good influence over how others perceive her on campus but cannot influence anyone anywhere else
  * cult influence - minimal. Isn't powerful enough to be worshipped, and knows enough of the truth to not waste time on paltry exercises of worship



Kate Marsh - a quiet girl from a faithful family. Faithful to an Elder God, anyway. Has been accepted into Blackwell based on her academic record and artistic skill, though had the administration been aware of her faith's allegiance, she would've been turned away as a possible source of interference.

  * powers - minimal to moderate. Her prayers can be answered but, as she's still learning, hasn't perfected the necessary skills to call upon her deity with any form of consistency. Of more immediate utility is her sight, which can sometimes pierce Veils, meaning that on occasion, she can truly see Courtney. This has not endeared them to one another.
  * cult influence - at Blackwell, none. Wrong sect, wrong deity, and Kate's pretty secretive about that sort of thing, anyway. At home, high, being the oldest daughter of a cult's leader.



Chloe Price - daughter of the late William Price, she was expelled from Blackwell for interfering with one too many rituals (whether by accident or design is still up for debate). She drifts from job to job, making ends meet, while pissing off her prick of a step-father and crashing the occasional Vortex gathering.

  * powers - none, though she'd consider her ability to tell anyone to fuck off a power in and of itself
  * cult influence - none, though the same can't be said about Joyce, her mother. She's done all she can to keep Chloe from that life, wanting nothing more than to see Chloe leave Arcadia Bay for good



Rachel Amber - daughter of the DA, rising star of the theater world, beautiful, talented, just about perfect. And everyone wants a piece, sometimes literally. Some see her as the perfect human sacrifice. Others simply want to desecrate that perfection for no other reason that it exists. Matters aren't helped that she's also curious as to why her father and step-mother have been taking excursions into town on a semi-regular basis and is eager to solve that mystery.

  * powers - none. That's right, this time, Rachel has no powers
  * cult influence - none, as her parents have kept her out of it. However, Rose and James are ranked pretty high. Neither knows what will happen if the cult decides that Rachel will be the perfect vessel for their god.



Mark Jefferson - famous photographer turned professor, he has come to Blackwell to instill his knowledge and insight on the next generations of photographers. At least, that's what the bio in the student handbook would like you to believe. In truth, he was personally recruited by Sean with the promise of influence, prestige, and most importantly, targets, to continue his sick pursuit of capturing innocence, completely unaware that he and his art is being used by Sean for a much darker ritual.

  * powers - none. Incredibly skilled with a camera, though
  * cult influence - none, as he's not aware of what's actually happening behind closed doors



Juliet Watson - reporter and editor-in-chief to the university's newspaper, she's on the hunt for the story of the century. Heaven help her if she actually uncovers it, though.

  * powers - none. Very intuitive, though, and can pick up on subtle cues that others miss. For instance, she knows that something's up with the Vortex gatherings but has yet to figure out what.
  * cult influence - none. Despite being a member of the Vortex Club, has no knowledge of their inner workings, or that there are even inner workings to begin with



Steph Gingrich - Dedicated artist, detail-oriented, good friend, and has absolutely no idea that the various cult members that surround her are utterly convinced she's a member of a rival cult, though because they have no idea which one, they're all keeping their distance so as to not accidentally anger the wrong one.

  * powers - has a photographic memory and has memorized the details of every single deity in every piece of D&D, Pathfinder, and other fantasy novels, including their names, their spheres of influence, known powers, goals, last known location, and notable human avatars. Hence, the reason all the various cult members think she's a part of a rival group: they have no idea all the things she spouts off regularly is complete fiction
  * cult influence - minimal to moderate, though not on purpose. Rather, whenever she mumbles to herself about what [insert deity here] might be doing because Jupiter is waning (she talks to herself when planning out more gaming sessions), anyone who's eavesdropping on her tend to alter their own plans accordingly, convinced she knows more than them



Max Caulfield - has come to Blackwell on a photography scholarship and possesses an incredible amount of raw talent, which has caught the eye of Mark (who sees her as a diamond in the rough), Victoria (who gets ragingly jealous), Rachel (who wants to be photographed), as well as several others. She has no idea that she's about to become the center of the worst cult clusterfuck since the three-way brawl between the followers of Cthylla, Shaklatal, and Olkoth back in '99.

  * powers - demi-god. Can control time, though using her powers causes ripples that can be felt by anyone with even a modicum of Power. When she sleeps, she gets visions of strange and terrible things, not realizing that each one is an invitation by various Great Old Ones to join them amongst the stars
  * cult influence - high, though completely by accident. Unbeknownst to Max, a dark ritual that was meant to channel a fragment of Power into their waiting vessel, Rachel, misfired, and she became the unfortunate recipient instead. Now, cultists loyal to the cause, cultists who are actually plants, spies, and insiders to other organizations, as well as a couple of other factions, are all scrambling to find where this Power went.



**Author's Note:**

> My initial idea for Max is that she's always had this power, being a vessel of the Elder God that Kate worships, which would lead to some interesting interactions between the two. She would've come to Blackwell, drawn to it due to the various bits of power being flung around and harnessed, and become a target by those who had the audacity to assume they can manipulate and control her. Ultimately, though, I decided to make her a student instead.
> 
> As with all these crazy AU ideas, I give permission for anyone out there to take this and run with it.


End file.
